You are here

Citizen science snow project featured in Nature Climate Change

The Community Snow Observations (CSO) citizen science project was featured in a Nature Climate Change Snapshot last month. AK CASC scientist Gabriel Wolken is a founding member of the CSO team, and presented the project at the 2018 International Snow Science Workshop in Innsbruck, Austria this fall.

The organization engages backcountry winter recreationists and professionals to collect snow depth data at a scale beyond what one team of researchers could achieve. In the two years since the project began, thousands of observations have been recorded across Alaska and the world. This observational data takes participants minutes to measure and requires only an avalanche probe and phone. In conjunction with detailed measurements taken by the CSO team, the data helps researchers improve climate and snowpack models.